


Text Run in Twelve Parsecs

by domesticadventures, propinquitous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Emoticons, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Miscommunication, Star Wars References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:38:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures, https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean shoots first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Text Run in Twelve Parsecs

**Author's Note:**

> we write a lot of ridiculous stuff; come hang out with us on tumblr [here](http://domesticadventures.tumblr.com/) and [here](http://propinquitous.tumblr.com/).

Cas has learned a lot about being human. He knows about hunger, what it feels like to need a shower, the discomfort of overgrown toenails. But despite no longer being able to communicate via dreams or teleportation, he has yet to grasp the nuances of text messaging.

Dean learns this when he gets a text during a hunt. There’s a ghost, some sort of spirit that may or may not be vengeful, in an old plantation house outside of Atlanta.

_Hannah and I are watching Star Wars. The ‘good ones’, as you put it._

He rolls his eyes and puts his phone away. He’s standing over an open grave, matchbook in hand, and it is really, really not the time for this. Don’t text and hunt, he thinks, and strikes a match.

Later, though, when the bones are burnt to charcoal and Sam is asleep on the opposite bed, he texts back.

_Look at u all proper. Ur so pretentious but good 4 u :P_

Less than a minute passes before the screen lights up his face.

_Why are you sticking your tongue out? It seems unsanitary. And unnecessary._

Dean can’t think of a succinct way to say “It’s a simple text-based representation of complex human emotions and is meant to convey a sense of lighthearted fun”. Like hell is he going to tap that all out on a damn touchscreen, his thumbs too big for autocorrect to compensate and his pushing-forty eyesight just a little too dim for such small font at close range. And anyway, that seems more Cas’ style than his. He texts back, _Whatever, nerd_ , instead.

\--

They start the drive back in the morning and somewhere around Nashville, Sam starts to notice how Dean keeps glancing at the phone positioned semi-strategically between his legs. 

“You, uh, expecting a call or something?” Sam asks. He stretches his arms behind the seat and grins.

“None of your business,” Dean huffs defensively, closing his legs over the screen. Except it makes him realize that yeah, he’s kind of hoping for Cas to text him, and maybe he kind of regrets not inviting more of a response with his last message. He shakes it off, pushes the lump of fondness and longing down his throat, and doesn’t look at his phone again until a rest stop in Concordia.

Dean feigns interest in the vending machine until Sam disappears into the bathroom. He knows he only has a minute or two, so he digs his phone out of his pocket, casting a furtive glance around to make sure no one is tall enough to read over his shoulder.

_How did u like it_

He tries to send psychic waves through the phone, willing Cas to respond before Sam emerges. His phone buzzes almost immediately.

 _I had already seen it, if you recall._ And then, after a few seconds, like an afterthought wandering through satellite signals and fiber optic cables, comes _:P._

Even though he hasn’t really explained much, Dean thinks that Cas is starting to get it.

_Metatron’s mind meld doesn’t count_

He bites at the cuticle of his thumb and smiles a little when Cas’ reply comes.

_The Vulcan mind meld is from Star Trek, Dean. I thought you would have known the difference._

Dean snickers a little.

_Wow ur the king nerd_

“Who’re you texting?” Sam’s voice comes from somewhere over his right shoulder, lilted and teasing.

“No one, no, fuck,” he sighs. Sam raises a judgmental eyebrow. “Cas. I’m texting Cas,” Dean admits, shaking his arms out. “Who the fuck else would I be texting?” Dean scrubs a hand over his face and glares at Sam’s shit eating grin.

“I dunno, man. That deputy from Hibbing?”

“Get in the car, asshole.”

\--

Dean spends the rest of the drive to Lebanon thinking about his phone. It had buzzed almost as soon as he sat down in the driver’s seat, but he’ll be damned if he’s giving Sam the satisfaction. So instead he contemplates Cas’ likely responses, how he’s probably said something like, _Do nerds have an electoral system?_ He imagines his voice over and over again for the next 300 miles, in variations of that sentence. He wonders if Cas maybe added an emoticon, a :P face, though Dean is suspicious of how much he really understands the point of emoticons and what they mean, because for the life of him he can’t imagine Cas making a goofy face like that. Instead he pictures Cas’ face, completely serious, a slight frown and furrowed brow. The image carries him the five hours home, Sam snoring in the passenger seat. At a stoplight in Lebanon, Dean finally pulls out his phone.

_Nerddom is more of an anarchy than a monarchy, Dean._

There’s no emoticon, but Dean grins all the same. It’s almost midnight by the time they get back to the bunker and Dean hurriedly pushes Sam into his room before closing himself into his own.

Dean can picture it so clearly, like Cas is almost there. He hasn’t stopped thinking about Cas’ expression all afternoon, and god help him, on a whim he types out a quick reply.

_Oh yeah, talk nerdy 2 me ;)_

Cas doesn’t reply as quickly as he did earlier, so Dean figures he’s on a mission, or maybe at dinner or asleep, because who the hell knows what Cas needs these days. Dean plugs in his phone and sets it on the nightstand. He laughs under his breath. When he finally lies down, he forces himself to face the opposite direction so that he won’t see if his phone lights up.

\--

Dean checks his phone as soon as he wakes up.

_As you wish. Monarchy is the oldest form of government. ;)_

He thinks that maybe Cas is just mimicking him with his response, initially. But it doesn’t stop after that.

Using the winking face turns out to be a huge mistake. Cas continues copying him, and it quickly becomes supremely confusing whether he knows what the stupid thing implies. Sometimes it makes no sense, a goofy amalgam of punctuation, and other times it seems like Cas is deliberately messing with him. Dean tries his best to keep up the small talk, desperate to know that Cas hasn’t decided to return to Heaven, embarrassingly needing to make sure that he’s still around. So he keeps talking, keeps prompting Cas to respond. It’s when he responds to a message about the bunker’s lack of a dryer that Cas’ misunderstanding becomes apparent.

_Doing laundry can be quite troublesome. ;)_

He tries to imagine Cas winking while saying it, and for the life of him he can’t picture it as innuendo, no matter how much he wants to. It doesn’t read as flirty or sexy. It reads like a dad joke. Cas as a nerdy dad. Yeah, that he can definitely picture.

But he’s still Dean, so he responds in kind, grinning at his own joke like an idiot.

_Oh ya? would u describe ur load as large or super? ;)_

He waits a minute, hovering over the basket of wet clothes expectantly. 

_It’s a small load. I only have the one set of clothing._

Dean frowns. Cas’ response makes him sad in a way he doesn’t quite understand, makes him feel guilty about his basket full of jeans and shirts and boxers. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, really. He spends a minute trying to think of a response that sounds like something other than pity and fails. His time is better spent hanging up Sam’s boxers, but he pinches his finger in a clothespin and storms off before he finishes.

\--

_So I’ve been thinking about Star Wars._

Dean’s at least three quarters asleep on the couch, a documentary about the Alaskan wilderness playing dimly in front of him. He swallows, rubs his eyes.

_Oh ya?_

It takes so long for a response that Dean thinks Cas is busy or forgot or worse, and suddenly he finds himself very entranced by the disgusting way moose shed their antler velvet. When his phone finally vibrates, though, he understands. Cas has written a freaking novel.

_At first I thought the obvious parallel was between you and Leia, Sam and Luke, and myself and Han. The sibling parallel is the most obvious. However, upon further reflection, the obvious comparison isn’t particularly compelling. For instance, I find that the scene where Leia ventures into Jabba’s palace shares many similarities with my mission into the depths of Hell. It’s a far more interesting correlation._

And Dean freezes. It’s too much. There’s no way, with that level of analysis, that Cas doesn’t understand what he’s hinting at. So Dean takes a few deep breaths, rereads the text, and steels himself. 

_So u see urself as leia to my han?_

No winking face. He really wants to know. He wonders if Cas will get it.

His phone buzzes less than a minute later. It might be an hour, a day, a fucking millennium, though. He’s not entirely sure.

_Yes. I will always come for you, Dean. ;)_

The winking face, Dean thinks. The fucking winking face. There are two ways to read that text, and they mean very different things and both of them are kind of unsettling in their own ways. And both of them kind of read like Cas is. Well.

There’s a long pause while Dean works out how the hell he’s supposed to respond to that. For the life of him, he can’t tell what Cas means by it, what he could possibly not mean by it. After an indeterminate amount of time spent staring at that damned winky face he finally decides that, okay, Cas has to be making a joke to get back at Dean. He has to be ribbing him for all his silly flirting since Atlanta. He has to.

But part of him doesn’t think so. Part of him thinks Cas is only capable of saying things with the utmost sincerity, regardless of the medium. So he does the only thing he can think of and punches out a reply before he can think too much about it.

_I’m interested if u are ;)_

He adds the winking face at the last minute, like he means it as a joke but actually he kind of doesn’t. Still. Plausible deniability.

And then Cas texts him back.

_You’re interested in going back to hell???_

Three question marks. No way to read that as flirting. Dean is pretty sure he’s being dead serious. Shit. He starts frantically typing out a response, trying to think of a way to explain that he was just flirting without actually admitting to flirting.

Naturally, Sam chooses that exact moment, when Dean is staring furiously at his phone with an expression somewhere between throwing up and passing out, to ask about dinner.

“Hey, I was thinking about heading into town for a bite -- are you okay?”

Dean is wide-eyed and in such a state of panic he almost considers asking Sam for a second opinion. He considers it so thoroughly that he manages to get out “Sam, look at --” before he remembers all the dumb flirting he’s been doing and rethinks it and switches gears to “No, don’t, nevermind, god. What was your question?”

But his expression is too pained, his cheeks are too red, and the way he covers his face with his free hand leaves Sam no other option. He can’t just let it go, not without handing over his gold medal for Most Annoying Little Brother. So he lunges for Dean’s phone, wrestling Dean from his chair to the cold concrete floor of the library, and Dean realizes how immensely unfair it is that Sam has such a long reach with his dumb octopus limbs. Still, he struggles valiantly until Sam’s reach finally enables him to wrench the phone from Dean’s extended hand.

“How could you. You were supposed to bring balance to the force,” Dean grumbles, rubbing at his elbow.

Sam raises an eyebrow, but Dean watches in despair as his face shifts to understanding as he reads through the text log.

“I get the hell metaphor, but wouldn’t you be Leia in this scenario?” Sam asks. Dean groans and falls to his back, dramatically throwing his arm over his face.

“Can anyone stop making sibling parallels for like, one minute. Please.”

Sam scoffs and tosses Dean’s phone onto his chest.

“Stop being a baby and just talk to him. Like an adult. You’re old, he’s like, a thousand times older. Between the two of you, y’all should be able to figure it out.” Sam shakes his head.

“What, you think he’s...uh.” Dean can’t finish his question and he blushes, face still hidden beneath his arm.

“What, that he feels the same way? I mean, you made it pretty obvious through this nerdy crap. But in case you haven’t noticed, Cas isn’t the best at reading social cues even in person. What did you expect?”

For a second, Sam feels guilty. He doesn’t mean to chastise his brother. Dean’s never been one for self-indulgence, unless you count pie and porn, and he’s certainly never been one to believe that he deserved anything, or anyone. He’s just about to reach out, to pat Dean on the shoulder and apologize, when Dean suddenly sits up and breaks the silence.

“So do you think he’s Leia or not?”

Sam wants to cry. Instead he takes a deep breath.

“Have you even seen yourselves when you’re together? You bicker just like Han and Leia. It’s gross. Just call him or something.”

Dean groans and flops back toward the ground. “Whatever. Get out of here, Jar Jar.”

“First of all,” Sam says, dusting off his knees as he stands, “How _rude_. Second, I’m not the one like, ‘Ooh mooey mooey I love you’.”

Dean can’t even believe Sam remembers Jar Jar’s lines except, well, really he can because Sam is torturing them with him right this second and so he probably stored them away in his memory for this exact purpose, for torturing Dean about his unrequited crush of half a decade, the longest interest he’s ever held in anyone.

“Oh my god,” Dean says. “Get _out_.”

“Search your feelings, you know it to be true,” Sam says and races out of the library, leaving Dean to mildew alongside the older parts of the archive.

Dean is still glaring at the space previously occupied by Sam when his phone rings. He’s trapped. He’s been texting Cas all day. Cas totally knows that he’s not busy and doesn’t have an excuse to not pick up, and he kind of feels like Han still trapped in carbonite, for all he can do to escape this situation.

He sits up and manages to clear his throat so that he can answer with what he thinks is a casual, “Hey, Cas,” except that his voice kind of breaks on the second syllable. He tries to cover it with a cough with moderate success. 

“You didn’t respond. I was concerned.” Cas’ voice is deeper than Dean remembers. He fidgets, draws himself inward until he’s sitting crosslegged against a bookshelf.

“Dude, I was.” Dean pauses. He can’t even begin to explain the situation, this monster he’s created. He was making Star Wars puns and throwing in some innuendo to ride this careful line, like maybe he could pretend he wasn’t being serious, except he kind of was. Definitely was. He tries for a degree of honesty, simultaneously building escape routes in his head. “I mean, you made that comparison to Leia going to rescue Han from Jabba I just kind of thought. You know.” He senses Cas’ frown before he hears it.

“No, I don’t know. Your text messages are often quite cryptic.”

“ _My_ texts are cryptic? Look who’s talking, Mr. Cryptic.” Dean cringes.

“I don’t understand. I have been quite clear throughout our exchange.”

“Dude. I’m not convinced. Your use of emoticons is all over the place.” Dean is gesturing, raising his eyebrows and sighing as if Cas were right in front of him, not however many hundreds or thousands of miles away. Where the fuck _is_ he, anyway? He should ask. He should know that sort of thing.

“What are ‘emoticons’?”

“You know. The faces.”

“What faces?” Dean has an uncomfortable flashback to the night Zachariah sent him to the future. Well, today, really. Ugh.

“Are you kidding me? The faces you make out of text characters. Like that fucking winking face you’ve been adding to everything. Semicolon, right parenthesis. Don’t tell me you were just adding that randomly.” Dean points like he’s jabbing at Cas’ sternum.

“Hmm.” Cas’ thoughtful hum trails off and Dean’s stomach sinks.

“Oh my god, you were adding it randomly.”

“That hardly seems important.” 

“Dude. It’s. It’s literally the whole point of this conversation.” Dean shakes his head, resists the urge to lie back down, to prostrate himself before the god of emojis. “What the hell.”

“Speaking of hell--”

“No you don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“You don’t get to just--you don’t get to switch the subject like that.” Dean accidentally bangs his skull against the shelf when he attempts to throw his head back in exasperation.

Cas sighs, clearly genuine and confused and all sorts of things that are just not okay, not at all. “Dean, I’m trying to understand.”

“ _You’re_ trying to understand? Understand what?”

“What you meant about Han and Leia.”

Dean is annoyed, he’s flustered, he’s a million things that he can’t articulate all pent up in his chest, and they all come spilling out in this stupid explanation about _Star Wars_. Which Cas should really get, if Metatron had bothered to do his goddamned job properly.

“Dude, you compared us to Han and Leia. You compared yourself to Leia and me to Han, specifically. Leia and Han, who spend all that time bickering but. You know. Start to get along eventually. Start to, I dunno, see the good parts of one another. Leia fucking--she fucking goes to this horrible place just to save this asshole. And they end up saving the world, you know. Together. They end up...” and he can’t do it, he can’t fucking finish the sentence. Fuck.

“Together,” Cas suggests, for him.

And Dean swears to god his voice is totally steady and absolutely doesn’t crack when he says, “Yeah.”

“You know,” Cas says, and his voice takes on this suspicious musing tone. “I know every line of the movies by heart, thanks to Metatron. I could quote them word for word.”

Dean’s head is spinning at this sudden change in direction. “I know,” he manages, barely getting it out before he has to take a break to catch his breath.

“No,” Cas says, “you’re skipping my line.”

“What?”

“My line. Before you say that, I’m supposed to say ‘I love you.’”

And everything stops spinning just like that, because holy shit. He’s amazed he even manages to continue forming words.

“You’re supposed to say it? Or you’re saying it?”

“I’m saying it.”

And Dean, god help him, says “I know.”


End file.
